Having problems with dungeon lighting effects

Robert Feyerharm · August 2017

I've carefully read through the posts on lighting in the forum, plus Joachim de Ravenbel's paper on light effects, but I still can't get the light effects to work properly in DD3.

I end up with a completely black dungeon map except for the torch sconces.

My Sheets are arranged as follows:

LIGHT
FLOORS
WALLS
SYMBOLS TORCHES
LIGHTS FINALIZE

with Wall Shadow, Point Light Setup activated in each sheet and Wall Shadow, Point Light Finalize in the last sheet.

What am I doing wrong?

jslayton · August 2017

There are many, many things that can go wrong. Have you added lights to your map? If so, have you placed the lights on a sheet other than the one that your symbols are placed on? Placing a light inside of a symbol (e.g. putting a light inside of a torch) will cause the light to be occluded by the symbol.

If you could upload your map (or one that displays similar problems), it would be much easier to diagnose the problem.

Robert Feyerharm · August 2017

Ah, I think I just figured it out - the trick seems to be adding the light effects (via Dungeon > Lights > Add Light) *after* you apply the Wall Shadow, Point Light Setup and Wall Shadow, Point Light Finalize to the sheets under the LIGHT sheet.

If you add the light effects *first*, then apply the Wall Shadows to the sheets, the whole dungeon ends up dark.

Robert Feyerharm · August 2017

Wait, I'm running into the same problem again. The map turns black except for the torches once I turn on the shadow effects in the sheets.

Robert Feyerharm · August 2017

Here is the Light menu, which I open in the LIGHT sheet.

Robert Feyerharm · August 2017

This is very strange - I'm duplicating the same steps I did last week, except now the lighting effects don't appear.

Here's the room with shadow effects turned off.

Monsen · August 2017

Could you post your .fcw file? It is easier to identify any mistakes that way.

Robert Feyerharm · August 2017

Here it is - thanks for your help Monsen!

Monsen · August 2017

Your problem was that you had set the lights to be varicolor. Just as for symbols, this means they take on the color of the entity itself in stead of the color you define for the light, and the color of your light entities were black, making them basically invisible. Your lights are also very weak, you'll probably want to increase the radius a bit, and possibly the intensity. Also, you wouldn't normally need a wall shadow effect on your floors, you normally don't want those to block light and cast shadows.

Robert Feyerharm · August 2017

Fantastic, - thank you, Monsen! Yea, I was blindly following the advice in Joachim de Ravenbel's Light Effects article, where he checked off the varicolor box.

You ought to do a tutorial on light effects in DD3 and post on YouTube!

Monsen · August 2017

Videos ain't my thing, I prefer the written word. And my written tutorial on the subject can be found in the tome

LordEntrails · August 2017

RobertF, I can recommend the Tome of Ultimate Mapping. I've got through the parts on Dungeon lighting and it's really useful. The topic isn't second nature to me, but I'm sure after I do a few more dungeons based on what I learned, I'm sure it will be much more natural for me.

Joachim de Ravenbel · August 2017

Posted By: RobertFI was blindly following the advice in Joachim de Ravenbel's Light Effects article, where he checked off the varicolor box.

Sorry. I'll add a warning not to use black light.

Monsen · August 2017

Posted By: Joachim de RavenbelSorry. I'll add a warning not to useblack light.

Unless you have a spesific reason for it, I would recommend NOT using varicolor lights in the tutorial. They have their advantages, but it is more intuitive to be able to set the color in the dialog.

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Having problems with dungeon lighting effects

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